Snap! Crackle! Pop Culture! A Big Bowl of Marketing Fun

“Most good movies are about the style, tone and vision of their makers. A director will strike a chord in your imagination, and you will be compelled to seek out the other works. Directors become like friends.” - Roger Ebert

Speaking for all of humanity: we love stories. In fact, studies have shown that stories increase audience retention by up to 26%, which is why we encourage presenters to share an experience or weave a tale rather than deliver a series of snooze-inducing facts. For storytelling inspiration, there is no better place to turn to than the magic of Hollywood. Since moving pictures began, we have turned to them to be inspired, engaged, and amused. Wouldn’t it be nice if our presentations were more like seeing a matinee?

Applying an inside pop culture joke in your brand marketing is one of the best ways to grab your audience's attention by providing them with a double take. Learning from the masters of their mediums how to integrate in jokes can help you devise a strategy which will get your customers to stand up and take notice of your applications of this art.

As a thirty something, I’ve known for a while know that I’m on the brink of extinction when it comes to pop-cultural relevance. My twenty-something sister frequently reminds of that as she trolls through Tumblr for the latest subculture trends that soon make it into pop-culture. Though I have very little interest in pop-culture, as a marketer it’s my job to know what people are talking about, to understand what they’re thinking, and to be able to relate to that. I’m one scenario, and there’s still hope for me since I have access to a younger generation that can keep me updated. But what about what mature business owners who excel at their business, who know they need to be active on the social front and engage with their audience, but who have no idea what’s hot right now.

There is virtually nothing in our media soaked decade which embodies pop culture more than the superhero movie. The avalanche of marketing and endorsement tie-ins to these films has reached the point where it is literally impossible to walk through a chain fast food restaurant or department store without being assailed by multiple movie merchandising initiatives. While these formal merchandising deals cost millions to obtain from the studio there are valuable and effective guerrilla marketing strategies which can connect your brand to these popular movies ... at no cost at all!

As grown adults, we might be a little more than tired of the endless slush of “selfies.” Self-taken pictures, or “selfies”, mushroomed into existence alongside Smartphones, which made it easy to reverse the camera back onto yourself and snap a photo (or ten) in your best pose. Seen as annoying and egotistical by plenty of us, selfies have also been seen as a method of self-exploration by Psychology Today. NCB News went further, claiming to have discovered the science of selfies as a way to claim our identity.